Portrait of friend of Stern and hat on sale
STRAUSS & Co is to offer a striking 1943 portrait of a friend by Irma Stern on auction next month.
Stern, the prolific expressionist painter, who ranks alongside Georgia O’Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois among the 10 most expensive women artists sold at auction globally from 2005-15.
The painting will be sold at auction on May 23 in Johannesburg.
Stern’s portrait of Freda Feldman offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s circle of friends and her early patrons, says Bina Genovese of Strauss & Co.
“Freda Feldman was married to Richard Feld- man, a prominent Johannesburg businessman and public figure who championed Stern during her early career.”
Irma and Freda were close friends, sharing a taste for elegant dinner parties and fashionable hats — the “paraphernalia of culture”, as she once described her cultivated tastes in a 1921 letter.
Stern’s portrait, rendered in an unusual (for the artist) realist manner, is important beyond its style and subject.
“Stern never produced any painted self-portraits during her prolific career, in part due to her difficult relationship with her body. Some commentators have suggested that Stern found a visual surrogate in Freda.”
Stern produced numerous portraits of Freda Feldman — in charcoal, gauche and oil — of which Portrait of Freda Feldman in Basotho Hat is regarded as the most important.
This 60cm by 55cm oil-on-canvas portrait is valued at R5m-R7m. The work is being offered with the original Basotho hat (or mokorotlo) worn by the sitter.
Admirers of Stern in Cape Town will have a chance to view the work before it goes under the hammer. Portrait of Freda Feldman in Basotho Hat will be on display at the artist’s former Cape Town home, The Firs — which is now the University of Cape Town’s Irma Stern Museum, on May 4 and 5.